Vermont Whole Wheat Oat Bread

So my bread adventure continues. I attempted this bread earlier in the week and, though not a complete failure, it did not rise all that much and came out very dense.

I went back to the drawing board so to speak and started reading the comments after the recipe on the KAF site and especially the responses of the staff trying to help with issues. They also have a blog at KAF and I found a bunch of tips on yeast breads. After some reading, I took some tips to heart and tried again.

Though not perfect, it came out a lot better. See all the air bubbles? ooooooh. There is one air bubble that was a bit too big, But, otherwise not bad.

I did stray from the original recipe with some items:

- We did not have any maple sugar, so I used light brown sugar.

- Nor did we have any honey. (I know how can we not have honey? Somebody has to take a ride up island and get some.) Anywho, I substituted B grade real maple syrup. This provided the maple taste that was missing because of the lack of maple sugar. B grade maple syrup is the best for baking. It’s the darkest and most flavorful.  I also use it on pancakes and waffles too because I like the strong flavor.

- Substituted 2 cups of bread flour for 2 cups of the all purpose flour. I thought this may help somehow. The first loaf had 4 cups all purpose.

- I could not find “instant yeast” on this island anywhere. So, I used quick yeast and let it proof for a while in the liquids before I added the flour. I also did not do this in the first loaf, I added the yeast and dry goods all together.

- I doubled the rising times and used the folding method to make the loaf, instead of the playdoh type mash and make a log method.

I hope my trials and tribulations help others to find the perfect loaf.The adventure continues…